by Eris Adderly
“Maybe not quite a day,” he said, narrowing his eyes at all the possibilities draped in scarlet linen. “I will find you.”
*
Minos and his brother Rhadamanthys argued over the fate of a single mortal at such length Hades could no longer be still. The Judges of Men kept up with their charge in more or less the expected manner and, now that he’d marked nothing out of the ordinary, he could move on to the next of his routine visits.
In the wavering light of the largest of the paráthyra, the orchards of the Underworld grew in regular rows. The trees and their fruit served no other purpose than the vanity of nostalgia. The souls of Man had no need to eat and neither did he, nor any other immortal residing under the earth. He had not always been Lord of the Dead, and the solitary plot of green on the floor of the Great Cavern stood as a lasting memento of his ages before the War.
Ah, but now there’s something else green in your realm, isn’t there?
He pushed the thought aside with a frown, steering his focus back to finding Askalaphos. The orchard keeper rarely had anything unusual to report, save the occasional complaint of Menoites’s oxen wandering loose, trampling new growth.
It was neither the herdsman nor the arborist, however, who came rustling between the trees.
“Your immortal ‘guests’ arrive with more frequency, Polydegmon.”
The surly presence of Kerberos did nothing to raise his brows, but the smaller figure following the beast did.
‘Guests’. Bah.
“Goddess,” he said, looking Aphrodite up and down in disdain. “I hope you haven’t come seeking more favors. You’ll find you’ve exhausted your supply.”
The Fair One’s smirk ignored his disapproval outright.
“Well,” she said, “if your lapdog’s warm reception wasn’t overwhelming enough …”
Kerberos snarled but padded away to the orchard’s outer rows, leaving the deathless gods to their privacy.
“What is it you want?” he said. “My end of the bargain is complete. Persephone is here and out of your way.”
“And so she is.” The goddess swished past him in a cloud of sheer yellow linen, the mischief in her tone enough to make him want to grind his teeth. “It seems you’ve wasted no time at all, Clymenus.”
“Except perhaps the time I’m wasting now.” He had nothing but dry scorn as they began a slow course down the length of a row.
“Do you know,” she said, ignoring his jab, “the first time Poseidon took Amphitrite to his bed, it was said the Aegean multiplied with such numbers of fishes the Sons of Man could drive an oxcart from Athenai to Smyrna without ever sinking their wheels in water?”
“Wasting. Time.”
“Zeus and Hera?” Her lecturing continued, and Hades gathered his patience. “When your brother first claimed his consort, the lightnings raged about Olympos for a day and a night. Selene gave up and stabled her horses, the skies blinded her so. The chariot of the Moon sat idle for two nights that month.”
“You will come to a point, Fair One, or I will open a rift here and now and cast you back to Olympos.”
“So testy.” She waved a hand. “I’m sure your poor bride-to-be is smitten already.” The goddess stopped walking and turned to face him. “When I heard tell of earthquakes, my Lord, one right after the other for the better part of the night …” Aphrodite shrugged a graceful shoulder, smiling as though she’d said something clever.
“Earthquakes,” he repeated.
That madness with the cave. But surely …
“A realm recognizing its master’s consort.” She could not have sounded more smug. “Persuasive indeed. Has she agreed to the vows?”
As though a wedding were a possibility. Hades scowled. “What business is it of yours?”
“Of mine?” she asked, all feigned innocence. “Oh, none whatsoever, Lord of the Dead.” Pale fingers plucked a fruit, ripe, from a pomegranate tree. The goddess examined her take with an arched brow while she continued to speak. “I’ve only come to forewarn you.”
“Forewarn me of what?” Did she dare makes threats in his realm?
“Hermes has become aware of Persephone’s whereabouts. And if the Messenger knows, it won’t be very long before Demeter knows, as well.”
“And from whose lips did he learn this, I wonder?”
“Be serious.” She brandished the pomegranate at his accusation. “That would defeat the purpose of our bargain entirely. I don’t know who told him. What I do know is this: time grows short. If you want a bride without interference from Olympos, you’ll want to act, and soon.”
“You assured me Zeus had given his approval.” Hades forced his features to neutrality, but something in his chest roiled. It should have been weeks before the inevitable demands from the Sky. Persephone had only begun to surrender, and the way she responded to his touch, his mere presence, told him she had far, far more to give.
“Oh, you know how this game will be played, Polydegmon.” The goddess met his eye, cynicism bright green beneath copper lashes. “Demeter will insist, The Lord of Lightnings will laugh, then the threats will come out, and then he will bend. And then our dear Hermes will be down here to fetch her from your ‘villainous clutches’.” She punctuated her thoughts with a roll of her eyes.
“Your bargain with me is complete,” she went on, “but the look on that very serious immortal face of yours tells me you’re nowhere near prepared to end your time with Persephone. I did promise you’d find her suitable, did I not?” A knowing flash of pearly white teeth accompanied a flick of a delicate wrist. Aphrodite tossed him the pomegranate and he caught it with a grunt.
“What I say to you, my Lord Hades is no more than this: unless you wish to hand back your new consort”—she waved away his frown at her choice of words—“you’d best find a more permanent way of binding her to your side. Marriage vows will do, but in their place …?” The goddess tilted her chin at the fruit he now held.
Hades folded his arms and fixed her with a look that went on for several breaths. Aphrodite didn’t flinch.
“You came all the way to my realm in person to tell me this?” he said at last.
Dark red brows tipped up in amusement. “Do you think I want word of my involvement in this getting back to Demeter? I’ve learned to trust only myself when I require secrecy.” That smile, he suspected, was one her unfortunate husband had seen a great many times. “Shall I find the Guardian again to show me the way out?”
“No need for that,” he said, setting the pomegranate at his feet. “Kerberos prevents the escape of mortal souls from my realm. There are quicker ways back to Olympos.”
He pulled off his iron ring and drew it out between his palms. At the end of the sweeping motion, the weight of his bident rested in his grip.
Aphrodite tsked, teasing. “So godly. Have you done that little trick for Persephone? I’m sure she’d be impressed to see your ‘weapon’ grow.”
Hades ignored her and stabbed the iron tines into the æther. With a swift downward slash, he tore a gate to the upper realm. Blazing sunlight carved a swath onto the floor of his cavern and the goddess blinked against the glare.
“Your cautions have been noted, Goddess of Lust.” He presented the ephemeral gateway with an open palm. “Should you find your way into my realm again, might I suggest you come bearing good news? My patience has limits.”
She stepped to the glowing threshold and painted him with a sideways grin. “Indeed, my Lord.” In a flutter of yellow fabric, Aphrodite slipped through to Olympos. Hades closed the rift behind her with a twisting motion of fingers and wrist.
The orchard was silent. He nudged the discarded pomegranate with a sandaled foot and condensed his bident back to its ring.
Demeter’s wrath would be on them within days. He had in no way had his fill of the Daughter of Olympos who wandered his realm at this very moment. Not the give of her flesh, not the exquisite sounds she made, and certainly not the urge to spar that alternated with bou
ts of pure submission.
Is it possible to have your fill? Of her?
But his goal had never been to find a bride. The Lord of the Underworld had want of no such thing.
I approve of thiss mmatch, Lord Hades. You havve made a wise choice.
Hekate’s words nagged him. The Goddess of the Crossroads had been the first to use the word ‘consort’. What could she see, from those thrice-knowing eyes of hers?
“Are you listening to me, Polydegmon?”
Kerberos interrupted his thoughts, the three-headed beast approaching again along a flanking aisle of trees.
“My mind is elsewhere, Guardian. You were saying?” It would never do to remain so unfocused.
“Any other immortal visitors you expect lurking on the banks of the Styx I should know about?”
Hades shook his head. He hadn’t expected this one. “Let us hope not.”
“That female of yours is in heat, yes? I feel your mind on the rut.”
He sighed under a grimace of irritation. The keen eyes of his fearsome colleague were, as always, the only set to see the truth of his moods.
The Goddess of Growing Things did have his attention.
By her own admission, she was a breaker of rules. Her adventures on the mortal plane were evidence enough. Yet, here she obeyed with only minimal prodding, and he was sure even that bare token of resistance stemmed from fear of the unknown more than any real aim at defiance.
What guise had she worn when she’d seduced the Sons of Man? Had she chosen some nondescript mortal face? Sought to keep her dalliances inconspicuous? Or had she wooed with a full complement of earthly beauty? Surely nothing like the perfection of her true, immortal form. She would never have kept her secret that way.
It was almost a shame necessity kept their unexpected tryst confined to his domain. For all he had shown her thus far, his curiosity burned to see the Green One in her own element. Would blossoms burst in her wake? Forests surge up at her command?
Aphrodite had come with her demands, and Hades had gone to their fulfillment with little enthusiasm. After the fall, the sight and scent of the goddess in his arms, he’d set aside indifference for the oft-ignored call of lust. But now …
Now Persephone confronted him with unknowns.
He had called out her name. Forced it out at those moments of pleasure, spun silk-fine but strong as steel. The Lord of the Dead did not dignify playthings with the calling of names.
Because she is not a plaything.
Submission had been his goal from the moment he’d laid her in his chariot, but their every exchange showed such ends to be laughably simplistic. He could force submission. He could threaten and command.
But when Hekate had appeared on the bridge and Persephone had stepped without thought into the protection of his arms …
Hades shivered.
What he wanted now, he would have to earn.
What is she doing to me?
She was driving him to distraction.
“I’m sorry, Kerberos, what was that?”
The hound snorted hot air from all six of his flaring nostrils and lashed an irritated tail.
“You are useless this moment for hearing reports. As always, I have our borders under control, whether I am thanked or not. You should find and mount that bitch of yours. Clear the fog from between your ears. And your legs.”
Hades glared. He should have been paying attention, but the Guardian’s familiarity of late signaled a need for a return to order.
“You serve the Underworld well, as always, Guardian. Be grateful you were given wardship of a kingdom whose ruler tolerates your tongues. I assure you, either of my brothers would not.”
Kerberos shook himself, the vigor of threshing pelt and ears retort enough as he reared on hind legs. With a rude whipping of his tail, the beast turned and prowled away among the trees. “Insufferable gods”, the dog thought back at him, disappearing into the cavern.
The Guardian was right, though. He did need to clear his head. And he knew who would help him do it.
Hades knelt to retrieve the discarded pomegranate. The fruit filled his palm, a lusty pink rind with a little crown bursting from one end.
… a more permanent way of binding her to your side.
A small, ancient voice at the back of his head suggested this was not the way.
He ignored it.
*
The palace of Helios stood as far to the east as it was possible to go, on the banks of the river Okeanos. Around it glowed the land of the Hesperides, though the Nymphs of Evening and their hundred-headed Drakon were nowhere in sight.
The many windows of the House of the Sun painted a mosaic of golden light across the deepening purples of night, and Demeter, reserves of energy exhausted, passed over its gilded threshold alone.
The day’s trek had pushed her to the edge of her abilities, but Helios was close. She scouted a path to the throne room, guided by nothing more than heat, and soon laughter.
The halls of the palace were a blazing excess of immortal ostentation: surfaces leafed in gold and teeming with precious stones. Columns, friezes, pediments, all adorned with every conceivable metal and mineral chosen from the finest riches of the earth. Donated by Hades, no doubt—a bribe to keep Helios out of the Underworld. Why anyone would need extra incentive to avoid the Lord of the Dead, the goddess didn’t know.
She did not have to search for long. A beam of light blared with frightening intensity from a pair of immense gilded doors. It was as if a thousand—ten thousand!—war horns sounded their fearful news all at once.
Demeter passed under a lintel high enough to admit sailing ships and squinted against the violence of the light. Her forearm snapped up to shade her eyes in an attempt to make out anything at all. The giggling trickled to a halt and there might have been the outline of moving bodies some distance into the space, but her impaired vision played tricks and she couldn’t be sure.
“This meeting will be much easier, Goddess, if you face the other way.” The good-natured, booming voice came from where she thought she’d seen the silhouettes.
Demeter turned as suggested and discovered instant, if only partial, relief. The wall surrounding the door soothed the eye in polished obsidian. It must have been the only dark object in the entire palace, and the titan had to have imbued it with some additional properties to absorb the bulk of the glare.
Behind her, she could now see the reflection of Helios lounging on his throne. One of the Hesperides lay draped over his lap. Was it Aigle? Erytheis? She could hardly tell them apart. Either way, the golden head rested on one arm of the titan’s seat, and lustrous knees folded over the other. Helios played with her hair, and another of the nymphs leaned against the high back of the throne, smirking. Where the third sister was, Demeter couldn’t imagine. Perhaps still with the dragon, guarding the infamous golden apples.
“My apologies,” he said, the smile always present in his words. “This is just about the only way I can greet a guest. Believe me, I grow tired of speaking to the backs of heads myself.” The Titan’s easy laugh echoed around the room. Looking directly at even his reflection made her wince, but at least she was no longer blind.
He is far older than you. More powerful. Tread with care.
“Forgive this intrusion during your hours of rest, All Seeing One. I have journeyed far this day seeking answers only you may be able to give.”
“Peace, Goddess,” he said, “there is nothing to forgive.” Despite the grandeur of his palace, Helios paid no mind to formalities. “I saw your travels. I was expecting you.”
“Of course.” Demeter gave him a respectful tilt of her head.
She should have known. There was no surprising an immortal who saw literally everything under the sun. He was the sun. It was the very reason for her presence within his walls.
Helios leaned back in possibly the gaudiest throne Demeter ever had the misfortune of seeing: an amalgamation of gold and gems so layered and ornate one co
uld hardly recognize it as a chair. The real treasures of the earth, of course, were sheaves of grain and fat cattle, not jewels and other shiny bits of rock.
Best to keep thoughts like those to yourself. Especially when you come seeking favors.
“What knowledge do you seek, Fruitful One? Ask and we shall see what I know.” His fingertips played along the profile of the nymph in his lap, stroking her nose, the bow of her upper lip like the petals of an exotic flower. The Hesperides, it seemed, were accustomed to such imploring visitors. They paid Demeter little mind.
“You are most generous, Helios.” It could only help to fan his pride. “My daughter Persephone has gone missing. Do you know where she is?” Had it sounded too much like a demand? She resisted the urge to wring her hands.
“How long ago was this?”
“I believe you have crossed the skies four times, maybe five, since she disappeared. I sent her to Nysa for a day of leisure and she never returned. Artemis and Athena were with her and claim ignorance. They speak of earthquakes, but the shape of the land disagrees. Nor does that tell me about my daughter. I do not trust their words.”
“Four days … Nysa …” The titan’s focus dissipated while he thought. The nymph took two of his luminous fingers into her mouth, and Helios smiled at the resulting glow that came through her cheeks. Demeter held back an irritated sigh as the demonstrative sucking went on, but Helios ended it with a bark.
“Ah yes! Nysa!” The fingers withdrew with a pop and he shook one at the ceiling in success. “Please understand, Goddess. I see such a great many things each day; it becomes a task to sift through them all.”
“Then you know where she is?” Demeter clasped hopeful hands, impatient.
“I do,” he said, “but I’m curious. You say Artemis and Athena claim to have seen nothing?”
Would he not come to the point?
“They tell me they saw a chasm open in the earth, only to close again moments later. They claim it was after this they noticed Persephone missing. I believe they lie to hide their half-sister.”
